Joseph Gordon-Levitt On Why He Identifies As A Feminist

“That was something that my mom would always point out to my brother and me, that our culture does often portray women especially… like objects. For example, we would always watch Lakers games as a family, but my mom would always point out every time the cheerleaders come on, ‘Okay, so look, here’s the story that gets told: The men get to be the heroic skilled athletes and the women just get to be pretty.’ She didn’t mean any offense to any individual woman who was working as a cheerleader, but she wanted me and my brother to be aware of it because we see these images on TV, in the movies, and on magazines all the time. And if you don’t stop and think about it, it just sort of seeps into your brain and that becomes the way you perceive reality. … I do call myself a feminist. Absolutely! It’s worth paying attention to the roles that are sort of dictated to us and that we don’t have to fit into those roles. We can be anybody we wanna be.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has long been high up on our list of Dream Celebrity Boyfriends, thanks to his intelligence, talent, and good looks. But what really makes him one of our favorite men in Hollywood is his obvious respect for women. In an interview on “Ellen” yesterday, JGL explained how his mother’s influence had him thinking about feminist issues from an early age, which eventually led to him exploring the topic of porn and objectification of women in his fantastic and funny directorial debut, “Don Jon.” (If you haven’t seen it, you must!) I hate to sound like the stereotype of a weak and emotional woman here, but I’m swooning. [Ellen TV]

Taking a page out of those girls you went to high school with who can't stop smugly posting every detail of their perfect lives on Facebook, Lady Gaga shaded America's youngest grandma Taylor Swift just perfectly on Twitter yesterday. It all started when Jaime King's unborn child's godmother tweeted about Gaga, using the preferred…